Bei Dao Quotes
Being a poet in the States is quite different from being one in China, because in the States poetry depends on the universities for its support. They finance the poets and help them get published. That isn't so in China. But overall it is the same. You can't change society with poetry.
Quotes to Explore
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I suppose illustration tends to live in the streets, rather than in the hermetically sealed atmosphere of the museum, and consequently it has come to be taken less seriously.
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I don't hurt or want for visibility, but people seem to forget pretty easily.
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If I was a bajillionaire, I would spend a lot of time at Barneys just buying all kinds of great things all the time. I would have so many black cashmeres it would be out of control. I like the way nice things feel very much.
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You have to enjoy it. It is not going to happen every year, so this is the year that it is happening and we have got to go out there and enjoy it.
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I think success happens when it's supposed to and when you can appreciate it. I am grateful that it didn't happen for me at 22 or 23. I would've been foolish enough to think that we're all entitled to it, instead of it being the divine blessing that it is.
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Acting is a life experience. I'm always learning things when I'm making a movie. So the fame part of it is fine when you consider what you get out of this job.
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If you're beautiful, you're led to believe that you can't also be smart.
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I've written a screenplay that is a series of monologues and songs; they form this sort of human tapestry across time and place. The form is strange, but I find it really fascinating.
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Rain is good for me. I feel like I achieve clarity actually when it rains. The longer I have to sit and wait, the clearer my game becomes to me.
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I want to teach. I've got to figure a way to continue doing this in some capacity.
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My music is the most 'me' thing about me. Everything is in my music.
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Different times need different types of leadership.
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It's always hard to deal with injuries mentally, but I like to think about it as a new beginning. I can't change what happened, so the focus needs to go toward healing and coming back stronger than before.
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I've done hundreds of interviews on guns. I'm against people who use guns. I don't like guns, but I've never yelled at anyone.
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I'm not terribly confrontational, but I've gotten better at holding my ground.
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Anyone who thinks there's safety in numbers hasn't looked at the stock market pages.
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Writers, actors, anybody working on an ensemble-type thing, there are going to be some creaks in the beginning. It seems like there's tremendous potential in just letting things sort of breathe a little bit. It's tremendously important.
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If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little - somebody who is obsessed by Making.
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But clearly at the same time you've got to get out there and connect with voters and actually respond to the needs, the frustrations, whatever problems their now saying are not being adequately solved.
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Your wedding day is supposed to be your big day, and yet a lot of engaged couples find that instead of creating an event that will be important to them, they're dodging through a minefield of modern etiquette traps.
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From a building right in front of my windows, I can observe the speed of the sunrises and sunsets. The voices of children playing, laughing, yelling, and crying on the playground crawl up to the eighth floor, where I write. Their voices sound so innocent from a distance.
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I've known the glory of the stage and the glory of the spotlight. I still crave it. I want to be on 'American Bandstand' and 'Soul Train' as a solo artist. As a producer, songwriter and arranger, I help other artists say what they want to say. But on my records, I say what I want to say.
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Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.
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Being a poet in the States is quite different from being one in China, because in the States poetry depends on the universities for its support. They finance the poets and help them get published. That isn't so in China. But overall it is the same. You can't change society with poetry.
